


Rainbow of Rivers

by Kamu



Series: what causes a storm [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, Sun and waterfall analogies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-23 19:50:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6128203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kamu/pseuds/Kamu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bokuto Koutarou loves everything but himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rainbow of Rivers

**Author's Note:**

> [background music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQUNZqUXWRk)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> The [song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ukj4OAtw5w) the title was inspired by.

He says goodbye through a text.

 

Bokuto Koutarou: [Akaashi, I love you.]

Bokuto Koutarou: [Akaashi, know that I always love you.]

Bokuto Koutarou: [I’m a waterfall, Akaashi. My entire existence has only been to flow for you. My body is my love.]

Bokuto Koutarou: [A waterfall will eventually dry out. I learned this in my last environmental science class.]

Bokuto Koutarou: [The love doesn’t disappear, Akaashi! It’ll go somewhere else and flow where it can, giving life to people who need it.]

Bokuto Koutarou: [It’s amazing, isn’t it? All those rainbows, all for you.]

 

He leaves him one last voice message.

 

_“Ah, geez, I’m even more nervous hearing your voice through your inbox! Feels like you really are listening to me instead of me doing things one-sidedly. I know you’ll hear this. It’s like I’m time travelling and telling you I’m fine. I always say I’m fine. I know you never believe me._

_I’m telling you, I’ve never been more fine._

_I’ll tell you how._

_Will you listen?”_

 

What could Akaashi do as he is now?

Even in a place Akaashi couldn’t reach, Bokuto was selfish.

xXx

Bokuto Koutarou has always loved everything.

He loves the bruises he receives from running too fast down the slope of his street and crashing into the slant-eyed blond kid who was showing off his new cool bike.

He loves the blood on his knees and the irresistible itch under his bandages as he sleeps. When he wakes up and sees his red-crusted fingers, he laughs. He holds back a smile when his mother washes it off and scolds him.

He loves his mother and her worrying nature, but he doesn’t understand her concern.

He wonders why he can’t revel in his battle wounds. He got a new friend thanks to his careless ways! The scrapes are evidence of his efforts to be his friend. So what if he got hurt? At least his friend didn’t. Konoha was just fine. His bike isn’t, but so what? That can get replaced. Konoha can’t.

“You can’t be replaced either, Koutarou.”

Of course he can.

Why could no one understand?

Bokuto doesn’t matter.

 

_“I love the things I can do for the people I care about.”_

 

“Kou-chan, doesn’t that hurt?”

A girl from class 3 asks him during recess about the scratch on his arm. They had been playing together until he had fallen down after a chase across the playground. She’s eyeing the supervisor over his shoulder as she does.

Bokuto beams and shakes his head, “Nope! I’m fine.”

The girl must think he’s stupid, because she snorts and wrinkles her nose.

“No you’re not! You’re crying, you know?” She pokes his cheeks and shows him the wetness there on her fingers.

“When did that happen?” Bokuto didn’t even feel them fall down.

“Silly!” She laughs and rubs his face, hugging his head to her chest once she’s done. “Let’s go to the teacher or else he’ll get real mad.”

“Okay.” He nods and lets her take his hand. As they walk to the teacher, who has noticed the gash on Bokuto’s arm, Bokuto looks at the girl from class 3.

She has dark eyes that shine, messy short hair, and a missing tooth. Her smile is crooked and her freckles are her reward from playing out in the sun.

He thinks he loves her when she kisses his cheek to get better and make the pain go away.

He can’t bring himself to tell her he hasn’t felt pain in a long time.

 

_“I love kind people.”_

 

Basketball gives him too much feeling.

The ball is bigger than his hands can hold and actually _hurts_ when one of the sixth years throws one at his head.

After the third time, Bokuto has learned to catch it and play it off like an accident.

He wants to stay in basketball when he goes to junior high, and he has the application in his bag ready to go. His school is very enthusiastic about sports, more known for their strong sports department than academics. Bokuto chose this school precisely for this reason.

He’s walking in the school courtyard when he hears the familiar squeak of shoes on polished wood floorboard. Bokuto finds the source from an open gym door. He pokes his head in, pushing aside the weird netting placed over it.

It’s not basketball. There’s no heavy dribble of balls on the floor, no swish of the net, and no sound of the backboard glass rebounding from missed shots.

There are, though, the slam of balls being shot to the ground like bullets and the feel-good atmosphere of a team.

It’s strange. His basketball team never had this.

“Oh, hey, are you a new member?” Someone off to the side takes notice of Bokuto gaping inside the door. His dark hair is spiked up and he has a crooked smile. “I don’t know if you know, but I’m the ace here. It’s the coolest position in volleyball, you know?”

Bokuto doesn’t pay attention to the surrounding members murmuring “Yeah, yeah”s and “Sure, Ace-sama” throughout the gym; he’s too busy falling in love for the second time that day.

“No,” Bokuto says, “but where can I sign up?”

 

_“I love volleyball and the joy it brings.”_

 

The reserve third years made fun of Bokuto when he tried spiking up his hair like the ace’s.

“Really, Bokuto-kun? Are you a stalker or something?” One of them snorts, obviously slacking off as they hide in the shadow of the supply shed. “You’ll never be an ace if you only imitate him. You gotta be skilled, too.”

“Skilled at what? Flirting with kids?” Another cackles beside him. “God, he’s all friendly and shit, but he’s such a weakling. He hogs all the limelight just because he can hit a ball fast.”

“Guys like that are wimps off the court. If we were in a fight, I could beat him, maybe spit on him.”

Bokuto’s fist moves on its own. It crashes into the nearest asshole’s nose with a sickening crunch.

He doesn’t mind the slander to his name; Bokuto could care less.

When people like these guys drag someone he admires through the dirt, his blood boils.

He’s never had a single regret in his life, and he certainly doesn’t regret three months of suspension from the club.

He does feel something akin to it, though.

The first thing he sees once he gets back is the ace’s look of disappointment when they catch each other’s eyes.

 

_“I don’t love it when I disappoint the people I want to impress.”_

 

In his third year of junior high, Bokuto experiences the first of his mood swings. It might have been due to the newfound changes happening in his body, but he senses it might have been something else he can’t explain from a textbook.

His teammates were surprised and confused on what to do when Bokuto got like this.

The first time it happens a second year, who was known to be brutally honest and had a tendency to tick off the wrong crowd, shakes his head and makes light of it.

“Geez, Bokuto, stop kidding around! We’re about to win this set, so get over yourself and hit a good one.”

That was the wrong thing to say.

Bokuto felt like the world had their eyes on him. Expectation weighed on his shoulders and dragged his confidence down. He almost couldn’t breathe.

He misses three spikes in a row and two serves. The second set goes to the opposing team and everyone is frustrated with him to a certain degree.

“Sorry, I’ll get this next one!”

They lose 2-1.

Bokuto has never lied before, but during this game, he feels like he’s been lying the whole time.

 

_“I don’t love it when I doubt myself.”_

 

His last junior high tournament reminds him that people can love something more than he can.

Ushijima Wakatoshi might look like he feels even less emotion than a rock, but the way he plays shows his dedication and pure love for the sport.

His spikes have power and blow past Bokuto as he stands there, shocked to the core in more ways than one.

He admits defeat.

Volleyball may be the thing he loves the most, but it isn’t the only thing he loves. It’s too hard for him to single-mindedly love one thing forever. He’s seen aces crumble and break down from having their dreams crushed by people like Ushijima. In the end, their love wasn’t enough.

“I’ll beat you,” Bokuto says when they shake hands.

Ushijima nods and turns back to where his team has gathered.

He reads from an interview with a highly-esteemed setter, an Oikawa Tooru from Ushijima’s prefecture, that Ushijima is a self-centered player who only plays for himself.

Bokuto thinks that’s wrong.

He’s a setter, so Oikawa doesn’t know the adrenaline a spike gives when hit just right with the swing from muscles trained through sweat and tears. It’s addicting, and there is a pinnacle of euphoria at the peak of the perfect spike every spiker has felt at least once in their life. The ones who are strong, like him and Ushijima, know that feeling the most.

Bokuto’s setter is good, but he wishes they could have worked together longer. The groove of familiarity was just kicking in, and the setter once admitted there was no way he could keep up with Bokuto’s growth.

For a long time into his first year of high school, Bokuto hates his growth for outpacing his setter’s. He’s afraid the same thing might happen again at Fukurodani. His fear gets him on the bench for the first half of the year, until his reunited friend Konoha and new teammates cheer him up to playing seriously again.

“You’re amazing, Bokuto!” Konoha says when he slams down spike after spike in his debut match.

“Yeah, you definitely have the qualities of an ace!” Komi pipes in from the warm-up zone.

Washio nods and grunts, “Your power is admirable, if only you practiced your straights.”

Bokuto listens to their compliments with awe. He almost can’t believe it. His teammates think he’s...cool? Awesome?! The best ace in the country??!? Coming from them, it must be true, no doubt about it.

Bokuto laughs to the ceiling, “Oh, well that’s expected of the future ace, ha ha!”

He believes every word, until their team loses at the semi-finals.

He can’t believe in himself until he goes past his limits and proves to his team he _can_ be the number one ace in all of Japan.

He becomes a starting member in his second year.

 

_“I love the truths in my friends’ words.”_

 

Sarukui jokes that someone on their team should be a mascot, since Nekoma unironically has a few cat-like characters.

“Like Yaku-san?” Komi suggests. “He’s like an orange tabby kitten.”

“You’re the same height as him, though?” Konoha says, which earns him an elbow to the gut.

“Hm, but some of you kinda do look like birds?” Yukie says absentmindedly. “Like Bokuto.”

“Bokuto? No way. The only thing that’s owlish about him is his hooting and ability to stare you down,” Komi says.

“What if we did something about that pretty boy mess he has on his head?” Konoha gestures to Bokuto, who turns from his solo spike practice at the mention of his name. The surrounding second years assess Bokuto, whose hair had grown out and begun to curl in funky, gravity-defying directions at the ends.

“Pretty boy?” Washio repeats, not seeing it.

“Like a young master, the ones in shoujo manga,” Konoha clarifies. He points accusingly to Bokuto. “It doesn’t suit you! It’s not cool for our ace!”

Bokuto gasps, dropping the volleyball in his hands to clutch at his shirt, “What? Really?!”

Konoha snickers, “Yeah. I have an idea, so will you hear it?”

If it made him cool again, then Bokuto would.

“Tell me!” Bokuto grabs Konoha by the shoulders and shakes him.

“Please stop, your arm muscles intimidate me.”

The team listens.

 

_“I love my team members so much!”_

 

Bokuto has never felt regret before, but he suspects he may be feeling it now.

His head stings like someone spilled acid all over it, and Yukie had sprayed some unknown fruity substance into his hair as she disguised what she was doing as a head massage. The guys had laughed and blocked off all chances for him to get a good look at himself in a mirror.

He learns, though he loves his team for days, that he can be frustrated with them, too.

Bokuto pouts by the outdoor sinks, exhausted from running all over campus. He doesn’t want to spray himself with water in case Yukie’s work might get ruined, so he shifts to splashing water on his face.

Bokuto is so busy grumbling to himself about his friends being mean teases, that he doesn’t hear someone approach him from behind.

“Do you know where I can find the second gym?”

Bokuto turns around and finds a first year standing before him, a bag strapped over one shoulder and the most bored expression he’s ever seen on someone his age.

He has dark green eyes, no freckles, and a smile that is strangely absent on his round face. He looks like he doesn’t smile often, but when he does, it’s probably polite and perfect.

Before Bokuto can assemble his thoughts to answer him, the first year’s face slackens and his lips move skyward.

“Ah,” he says shortly, smile barely there but present, “you’re an owl.”

Bokuto consecutively falls in love twice that day.

 

_“I love owls, and I love your smile.”_

 

Bokuto loves a boy who smiles with his eyes and cheers him up through his hands.

The tops of his setter’s fingers are pale but underneath, they are worn and callused. Bokuto loves how he’s part of the reason why Akaashi works as hard as he does.

Akaashi keeps on improving, but Bokuto hasn’t.

“I can’t,” Bokuto says, shaking his head in refusal, “I can’t do anything! I suck so much I can’t even spike a cross right.”

Bokuto hates how useless he feels when his prized cross spikes get blocked over and over. What kind of ace was he? A worthless one.

“Bokuto-san,” Akaashi says to his back.

Bokuto looks up and there Akaashi is, standing by the net with a ball in his hands.

“Let’s work on your straights.”

 

_“I love volleyball even more when you’re with me.”_

 

They go to nationals but lose to none other than the soon-to-be number one ace in Japan.

It’s so ironic, Bokuto can’t bring himself to cry.

Bokuto hits spike after spike when they get home from the bus ride back. After an hour, the energy falls away and he collapses onto the floor, fist clenched and teeth gritted.

“Next year,” Bokuto promises to Akaashi, hidden in the shadowed hallway near the open gym door, “Next year, we’ll do it for sure.”

 

_“I don’t love how the world is against us when all we want to do is win.”_

 

Graduation passes. University life settles. A routine forms. Everything is normal.

And then everything is not.

Bokuto isn’t there when his roommate absolutely needs him.

“He was crying out for help, you know! The paramedics told us he could barely speak because he was shouting for so long!” his roommate’s ex-girlfriend spits. The only thing holding her back from clawing out Bokuto’s face was her friends, who glared at him with equal amounts of blame.

“What were you doing last night?” one of them asks as the other takes her away.

He can’t tell her he had escaped to an internet cafe and stayed there for the rest of the night, headphones in and body curled into a fetal position as he stared emptily at a speck on the wall. His roommate had understood Bokuto liked to disappear once in awhile, should have understood Bokuto would be gone that day as well with his phone turned off.

“I was over at a friend’s,” Bokuto lies weakly.

“I’m sorry for her,” the friend says. “We’re all to blame for not picking up his calls.”

She doesn’t say, _More for you since you were supposed to be there anyways._

He knows.

Bokuto knows when they clear out the other side of the room and he is reminded every time he walks in that someone had lived there, and that someone would never come back.

It’s not his fault, but it certainly feels like it.

 

_“I don’t like how my actions hurt other people.”_

 

When Bokuto says “I love you” to someone who isn’t his family, they reject him.

Kuroo doesn’t say sorry, but he hugs him which is enough.

 

_“I love how there are different types of love out there.”_

 

Bokuto says “I love you” to someone he isn’t quite sure loves him back.

“I love you, too, Bokuto-san.”

He believes him, because more than anything, he believes in Akaashi Keiji.

 

_“I love your honesty."_

 

Bokuto wants to love with his body, but Akaashi can only love with words and gestures.

Bokuto respects that. He cuddles Akaashi when he can, holds his hand when given permission, and tells him he loves him every day.

He’s on cloud nine. There isn’t a day where he’s not smiling and laughing, loving Akaashi with his whole heart.

He wants to shout it out to the world, scribble it out on the sides of mountains, immortalize it in a book to last for centuries.

If love was forever, Bokuto would times that to infinity.

 

_“I love how happy you make me.”_

 

Bokuto fails several times at work. The slumps are a part of adult life, he’s been told, but they get him down worse than in high school.

Sometimes, with his head in Akaashi’s lap in the middle of a Wednesday night as they’re watching the evening news, Bokuto wonders.

Does Akaashi ever falter and doubt like he does?

 

_“I love how certain you are and how much faith you have in someone like me.”_

 

“I’m here for you,” Akaashi whispers every time.

 

_“I don’t love how you can lie so flawlessly.”_

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

_“I love how you mean every word, even the ones that pain you to say.”_

 

…

 

_“I love your silence, even if you can’t help them. Even if this silence will last forever.”_

 

_“I love how alike we actually are, even if we show it in different ways.”_

 

_“I hate how alike we are, and how I never saw it until now.”_

 

_“I hate myself for never noticing you and your pain. How my overflowing love choked you until you couldn’t handle it anymore and left me behind.”_

 

_“I…”_

 

_“I will love you always. Despite what everyone says, I love you, still.”_

 

xXx

 

He leaves an addendum at the end of his last text.

 

Bokuto Koutarou: [I’m a waterfall, and you are the sun.]

Bokuto Koutarou: [I can’t see the rainbows, but it’s enough if I could see your smile.]

Bokuto Koutarou: [I’ve always been facing the light, but I never saw how you faced the dark.]

Bokuto Koutarou: [You should have lasted longer than me, but maybe you were tired. I've always wondered. I'll continue wondering.]

Bokuto Koutarou: [You traded your sunshine to warm me, to keep me safe and assured. I realize that. I've always known that.]

Bokuto Koutarou: [I should have appreciated you when I had the chance, and I’m left in the dark again.]

Bokuto Koutarou: [I’m not a waterfall if you’re no longer my sun. I’m a single person who loves everything but himself.]

Bokuto Koutarou: [I’m human, so I guess I’ll have to make my own sun.]

Bokuto Koutarou: [It’s weird, because I remember there’s a story that says when the sun went away, humans learned how to make fire.]

Bokuto Koutarou: [I wonder if I can survive on my own with just a torch as my guide?]

Bokuto Koutarou: [As long as you’re watching, I’ll gladly venture into the dark and make my way.]

Bokuto Koutarou: [At the end of the road, I hope you’re there waiting for me, Akaashi.]

Bokuto Koutarou: [Keiji.]

Bokuto Koutarou: [I want to hear you say, ‘I love you’ one more time so we can continue on our times forever.]

**Author's Note:**

> [blog](https://kamuwrites.tumblr.com)


End file.
